Raising the Stakes

“Good.”

“Keir?” Mary began to rise from her chair. “If you haven’t yet said anything to Dawn, let me do it. You know, woman to woman.”

“There’s nothing to tell her, Ma. If this is a false alarm, we’d just scare her. Worse, once she knew we’d found out about her problems, she might run to protect herself and her son.”

“Yes. Of course.” Mary settled back. “But we can’t simply ignore things.”

“No. We can’t.”

The three of them looked at each other. Then Keir shrugged his shoulders. “The best we can do is what we’ve talked about. Let Cassie ID this man, if she can. Get a photo of Kitteridge. And Dan? Tell your men to keep their eyes open for this guy.”

“Right.”

“And make sure Snyder sticks close to Dawn without letting her know he’s watching her. That’s all we can do just now.”

Mary and Dan nodded.

“We’re agreed, then?”

“Agreed,” Mary Elizabeth and Dan said in one voice.

Keir hoped it would be enough.

* * *

Gray spent the morning doing his best to behave like a tourist. Considering that he’d spent the night with Dawn in his arms, it wasn’t easy. How could a man concentrate on Hoover Dam when his head was filled with a woman?

He strolled through the lobby of the Desert Song, remembering how hard it had been to leave her, as he always did, just before daybreak. That was how she wanted it. She had this thing about keeping their relationship private; it was why he hadn’t stopped to look for her when he entered the hotel. He teased her about it but he had to admit, he kind of liked it. Not the secrecy. Hell, no. He wanted the world to know they were together…but he loved that touch of old-fashioned modesty.

How could he ever have imagined Dawn was a woman without morals? She was probably the most principled person he’d ever met.

He just wished he had half her morality, he thought as he inserted his key card into the door of his suite. If he did, he’d have told her the truth about himself by now, but he was a coward. He kept postponing the moment she’d realize that he’d deceived her, right from the start, especially after all the things she’d said about trusting him.

“Damn,” he said softly, as he tossed his card on the table.

He had to come clean, and soon. He’d hoped to wait until he knew more about her child, where the boy was and how best to assure his safety, but the longer he put it off, the worse the moment of truth would be.

Gray pulled off his T-shirt, took a can of soda from the minibar and headed for the shower.

Plus, he couldn’t stay in Vegas forever and he wasn’t leaving until everything was out in the open. Her secrets as well as his, because that had to happen before he could tell her that he couldn’t imagine being without her, that she was going back to New York with him.

He bowed his head, put his palms against the glass wall of the shower and let the water beat down on his shoulders.

He’d never fallen so hard or fast in his life. Actually it made more sense to say he’d never fallen at all, because what he’d felt that first night they’d spent together hadn’t diminished. If anything, it had grown more powerful.

He was in love.

He’d tried telling himself he wasn’t, that his emotions had been stirred by great sex. Mind-blowing sex. It hadn’t worked. It was love, not sex, and he knew, just knew, Dawn felt the same way. He could see it in her eyes when he took her in his arms, taste it on her mouth when he kissed her, feel it in the way she touched him…and wasn’t that great? He was standing in the shower, turning himself on.

Gray turned the water colder and shivered under its merciless pounding. By the time he stepped onto the bath mat, he’d reached a decision. He hadn’t heard from Ballard yet but what did it matter? It was reality time. Tonight, he’d tell Dawn everything. Why Jonas had sent him in search of her. Why that search had started with Harman, and what Harman had told him about her son. She’d be upset, maybe angry, maybe scared, but he’d take her in his arms, force her to listen to him, keep talking and explaining and telling her that he loved her until she got past everything and admitted she loved him, too, because he knew she did, dammit, he knew she did.

Then she’d tell him where she kept her kid and he’d be able to protect the boy. And then—then, they could move on with the rest of their lives, live in New York or anyplace else she wanted, because among the many things he’d discovered during this amazing week was that he didn’t really like the city. He didn’t like what he did for a living, either. He’d started out with some noble idea about defending the innocent and ensuring justice, and ended up defending anybody who had the big bucks to buy his services.

What would it be like, to be a lawyer in a small town? A place like, say, Brazos Springs? It was a crazy idea, considering that he’d run away from Texas and small towns, but everything was different now. He’d run it past Dawn and make sure she understood that they could live wherever she wanted, in a city or a town or the middle of the desert, just so long as it made her happy.

Gray chuckled. He reached for a clean shirt and a pair of chinos, put them on and looked at himself in the mirror.

“You’re running ahead of yourself, buddy,” he said. “Slow down, tell the lady how you feel before you start putting down roots.”